By: Lauren Spinelli, LCSW

I am so happy to be joining the Thrive Therapy team! I am a licensed psychotherapist and am truly excited to do work I’m passionate about. I feel so grateful that I have the privilege of helping others overcome obstacles and reach their goals!

I knew I wanted to be a therapist and help people from a very young age. My interest was sparked as I was growing up with my older brother and learned of his diagnosis of autism. I became increasingly interested in his various methods of coping and treatment. I saw the positive impact therapy had on my brother, and I always wanted to be able to help people the way he was helped.

I received my undergraduate degree from Boston College where I studied psychology and human development. Knowing this field was for me from a young age, I went right on to obtain a Master’s in Social Work, also from Boston College, with a concentration in clinical mental health.

I have had many experiences helping people overcome different life challenges and obstacles. Some of my experiences include working at a special services school with children, working as a counselor at a charter school, working as a therapist at an afterschool program with young children, working at an intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization program with adults, working at a crisis stabilization unit with adults and working at a suicide and sexual assault hotline.

As you can tell by my varied experiences, I absolutely love working with all ages! It is so exciting for me to watch people at all stages of life change, heal, grow, and achieve their goals! I look forward to doing meaningful and transformative work at Thrive Therapy Studio!

A note from our founder about Lauren:

I am so happy to welcome Lauren to our team at Thrive. She impressed me right away with her warm, caring, and enthusiastic approach to helping children, teens, and adults! I found that we shared a connection right away in our therapeutic approach and helping from a strong foundation of a therapeutic relationship with a good mix of support and challenge along the way. If you would like to read more about Lauren, please check out her Bio here!

​Please feel free to reach out to Lauren directly at 858-480-9638 or through our main Thrive phone number at 858-342-1304 if you are interested in working with her or another Thrive therapist! Lauren is now accepting new referrals for children, teens, couples, and adults for evenings and weekends!

By: Dr. Erica Wollerman

As a follow up to our recent blog about social media (from Panicha McGuire, check it out here!), I thought it might be helpful to give parents some ideas about how we can help kids and teens think critically and relate to social media differently. I find that so many of us, particularly some of the teens and kids that I work with, seem to be just consuming media and social media without really thinking about it, challenging it, or facilitating a dialogue about it. Especially with the “meme” culture we have going on. I have teens that I work with who seem to only communicate in memes without any real awareness of where the quotes came from, why they find them funny, or what they really mean. While it’s all very entertaining, I think we should all exercise some critical thinking and perspective taking when scrolling social media or just watching TV. The reality is that what we watch, read, and are exposed to affects our emotions, thoughts, and perception of the world.

Here are some of my basic tips in how parents can support their kids in thinking critically about social media:

Pay Attention: Just being aware of what your kids are consuming is SO important. So often, I have kids and teens telling me about what they watch, but acknowledge that their parents have no idea what they are watching, looking at, etc. I know it’s hard and kids don’t always want to share, but if you don’t know what they are watching, it’s hard to help them think about it!

Watch what they are watching: Maybe not together, but try to not just pay attention as noted above, but actually watch what they are watching and think about it from their perspective, so you can help have a conversation.

Create time to talk: A great idea would be setting a no phone/tablet/device rule in certain situations – the car, the dinner table, at certain events or places – so that you can be sure that you are chatting and communicating with your child in those situations.

Talk about it: Here’s where it all comes together, the best strategy is just to talk about it. Find a way to connect with your kid and have a conversation about what they are watching, but not in a “parent lecture” kind of way. In a, “hey I get it, but this is what this makes me think of, what do you think of that” kind of way. The key here is to not necessarily “parent” in that moment meaning you are not telling them what to think or what to do at all, but you are asking questions and approaching the discussion with curiosity to help your child/teen think about social media and it’s impact on all of us.

Ok, I know that is a tough list. It sounds so simple but it’s very easy to not do any of those things as a parent, especially considering just how busy we all are these days!

Here are some suggestions of questions and ways to approach these conversations:

“Hey, I heard about filters on SnapChat, can you show me your favorite? Oh wow, that is amazing! Look how good we look! You know, that makes me think that maybe all the pictures I see on TV, magazines, and maybe even Instagram have been edited like this… do you think that’s possible?”

“Have you watched that show 13 Reasons Why? I’ve been hearing that there is a lot of mixed opinions about it… what do you think about it?”

“You know what I noticed the other day is that the days that I spend more time on facebook, instagram, etc, the more I feel grumpy, unhappy with my life, or annoyed. It just seems like everyone else is having the best time all the time! Do you ever feel that way?” If they say that they do, you could share that you try to remember that everything on social media is curated and not representative of a person’s total life, just the parts they want to share.

And maybe it’s not ALL the time that you do this, but just sometimes. Anything could help plant a seed that helps your child/teen (or yourself) remember that social media is not representative of real life for most people, images are very curated, and all of it is designed to distract us from our face-to-face interactions so that the companies creating the media products can make more money!

If you would like to talk with a Thrive therapist about your or your teen’s use of social media, please give us a call! We love helping families through these issues!

At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304.

As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio.

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So, a topic that comes up a lot in my work with teens is pressure. Teens often feel a lot of pressure. They feel it from their parents, their schools, their friends, their followers on social media, and from the world around them as a whole. Even before social media came to be, it was really typical, and developmentally normal, for teens to feel that the whole world is watching them. And now they have proof that the whole world is watching, or not watching them, in terms of numbers of shares, likes, comments, snaps, texts, etc. As many parents recognize, it is a whole new ball game in raising kids, particularly teens.

What I notice to be really challenging for parents of teens is knowing how much pressure is enough, too much, or not enough. There is just so much pressure on teens, but also on their parents in our current society and culture. There is far more information known about development, parenting, and what is needed to be successful in our world. And honestly, as a new mom and therapist, I would say that there is way TOO MUCH information about all of it. There are a thousand parenting books out there and if I, the parenting “expert,” feel like I should read all of them despite my years of experience, education, and training on parenting, I can only imagine the pressure other parents feel.

​With parenting teens, there is also the additional pressure of college plus a limited number of years left that our teens live with us. The questions arise... have I done a good job? Are they ready for the world? How are they going to do anything on their own? Will they get into college? Will they make it in the real world? I could go on and on and on because the questions and the doubts are just never-ending. This leads to a huge amount of pressure but also fear for parents. Unfortunately, this can translate to our kids as feeling that we doubt them, rather than we doubt ourselves.

Regardless of how much pressure you end up thinking your teen needs in order to help them thrive as a young adult, make sure that the message you give them is that they can do it, that you believe in them, and that you never, ever doubt them and their ability to be a successful person. Showing them you have faith in them will do more than pressure ever will!

But, Erica, how much pressure should I put on them???Interestingly, there is no simple answer to the question, how much pressure is enough, where teens are considered. I believe that what is most important with teens and knowing the right amount of pressure is paying a lot of attention to who your kid is. If your teen is super motivated and puts a lot of pressure on themself without you intervening, then I think parents are in a lucky situation of really pulling back on their oversight of things. This group of kids needs independence and to be allowed some wiggle room to figure themselves out and how to manage the pressure they put on themselves.

If your teen is on the less motivated end of the spectrum, you most likely need to be providing some sort of extrinsic rewards to help them with their motivation. While this might seem like “pressure,” it is really just setting things up so that in order for your teen to have the things they like (phone, computer, friend time, etc.), they have to do the things they might not want to do (schoolwork, volunteering, chores, etc.).

While this discussion seems very categorical, I would actually suggest that it is just two ends of the spectrum that I am mentioning. Most kids are somewhere in between and need a nuanced approach of parent support, outside rewards, and then some level of wiggle room to make mistakes and figure out what they really want. If you feel that you need more support in figuring out how to support your teen, feel free to give our team at Thrive a call! We love working with parents to help their teens be more successful and to help them feel good about what they are doing as parents.

One last note, where parents are considered in terms of how much pressure is enough, I’m going to be blunt and just say that it is almost always too much. Way. Too. Much. Pressure. From ourselves, and from others. When I write my blogs, I even worry that my voice is adding to the pressure parents feel to always do or say the “right” things for their kids and families. The truth is, we are all going to screw up a little bit and what really matters is remembering we as parents are a work in progress, and so are our kids and teens. They are just figuring life out too and we all need some grace and compassion!

At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304.